Murder In Matera Page 12

  The house had brick-arched doorways and a red-brick barreled ceiling, at least twenty feet high, which kept it cool in summer but also helped the warm air circulate in winter. Floors were either dirt or rough stone or brick. Back in the old days, on especially cold days, the family used a braciere (brazier), a large round metal stand with a space in the center where you placed hot coals. The family gathered around and propped their feet up along the edges to warm them. A large brick hearth, used for cooking, now held a modern toaster oven.

  I had seen the house where Vita had lived in Bernalda and it was so small, three of them would fit inside here. Moving to Pisticci was definitely a move up.

  For both of us.

  Chapter 19

  CUPA CUPA

  WHAT VITA LOVED MOST ABOUT FRANCESCO WERE HIS SAD eyes. Big brown eyes that sloped downward and made her want to take care of him and make him happy.

  She had seen Francesco most days with her brother and had admired him from afar. He was short, but handsome, with coarse, strong workingman’s hands and a boldness to match Vita’s. He had served in the army, like all young men did these days, and she had seen him a few times in uniform, with his dark blue jacket and the matching dark hat with its single plume.

  He cut quite a figure, but I imagine he wasn’t quite as smart as Vita was. Usually the men weren’t as smart or as strong as their wives in Bernalda, though they liked to think they were and sometimes beat their women, even in public, to convince them of it. But there was a sweetness beneath Francesco’s strength.

  Nineteen-year-old Vita told him she loved him, with her own eyes, without having to actually say it. Francesco got the silent message and so proposed marriage, in front of Vita’s father Domenico, in front of her brother, in their small hovel of a house in the old part of town. Teresina was there as well. And they all consented. Maybe they even toasted the occasion with a glass of homemade wine.

  Vita tried to hide her excitement from her parents. But when they weren’t looking, she stared hard at Francesco and wondered what it would be like to kiss him, to touch him, and to have his babies. She smiled at him and flirted with her black olive eyes and called him by his nickname, Ciccio, like most of his friends did, but never even touched his arm or hand. It was forbidden.

  On the Thursday before the ceremony, a member of Francesco’s side of the family came to inspect the linens and furniture that Vita’s parents had made and collected. Then it was paraded through the village, carried on each family member’s head. A celebration followed outside the house, a dance where all the young people came and flirted, one of the few occasions where they could.

  Couples moved across the cobblestones to the music of the local band: the accordion, bagpipes, tambourine, and cupa cupa, a ceramic percussion instrument with sheepskin on top, and which made a noise when you moved a stick in and out of it. Cupa cupa, cupa cupa. (The word cupa meant dark, but it was a happy sound.)

  The dances were like square dances, with partners changing it up and moving in circles, hand over hand over hand, spinning and laughing and touching, for once.

  The night before the wedding, on Saturday, Vita wore a green skirt as part of her pacchiana outfit, a color meant to bring luck for the rest of the coming marriage.

  Then on Sunday—the actual wedding day, November 20, 1870—Vita put on her white wedding dress, which her mother had finished sewing for her just that morning, a final stitch saved for right before the wedding, for good luck. Teresina helped Vita with her white veil, similar to the veils of the bridesmaids, her sisters, and friends. The matching veils were to confuse the evil spirits, so they wouldn’t put a curse on the bride.

  Vita and Francesco, without touching or holding hands, walked to the church together, the one built centuries ago by Bernardino de Bernaudo. The bell in the tall ginger-colored tower rang out, signaling to the town that a wedding and mass were about to take place.

  In the street on the way to the mother church, townspeople placed obstacles in Vita and Francesco’s way, a broom, a crying baby. It was an Italian tradition, to represent the challenges that lie ahead. Housework. The colicky kid.

  Once they safely reached the church, they ascended the three worn stone steps and went inside. The interior of the church was simple and whitewashed, except for its exposed wooden roof beams. An old wooden statue of San Bernardino stood guarding one corner, and in another, a mural of St. John the Baptist looked over the baptismal font. A cemetery for children in Bernalda who died before the age of seven lay beneath this spot, underground.

  Vita and Francesco approached the white marble eighteenth-century altar, one of three altars, this one decorated with a medieval mural of Jesus being crucified, with Mary Magdalene flanking the cross. Jesus had his eyes closed, his ribs showing, his golden halo faded over time. His mother looked on as he died his slow, painful death.

  The small wedding crowd celebrated a long mass in Latin, at the center of which Vita and Francesco would say their vows. The priest, one of the few literate people in town, would read the vows line by line and they would repeat after him. With the Blessed Mother, Jesus, Rocco, Bernardino, and all the saints watching, Vita agreed to love and honor Francesco until she died. And he agreed to do the same.

  Nella gioia e nel dolore (In joy and in pain)

  Nella salute e nella malattia (In health and in sickness)

  E di amarti e onorarti (And to love you and honor you)

  Tutti i giorni della (all the days of)

  Mia vita.

  Francesco smiled and even laughed a little when he said those last words.

  Mia vita. Mia Vita.

  My life. My Vita. They were now one and the same.

  And then, with his callused farmer’s hands, he touched his Vita for the first time, taking her tiny and strong weaver’s hands and placing a simple metal ring onto the third finger of her left hand. (The left hand, the cursed side, to ward off evil spirits. That finger was also connected to the vein that led to the heart.)

  Francesco placed his rough palm onto her face and lifted her chin. Her skin was surprisingly soft, he thought. He gently tilted her face up toward his and kissed her thin lips for the first time. It was Vita’s first kiss ever, though Francesco had probably had some practice with the local puttane. It was a short kiss, but Vita would sink into it, as if drowning in the Ionian Sea, which she had only ever glimpsed from a distance but could smell on the windiest days, when the hot North African sirocco was especially strong.

  The couple left the church after the ceremony and hopped over a long red ribbon that stretched a few inches off the ground. It symbolized their crossing over together into a new life. Then Vita threw sugared almond “confetti” onto the cobblestones, a Roman tradition that symbolized fertility in the marriage. The neighborhood kids, waiting for just this moment, dropped to their scabby knees and scarfed up the white candied nuts.

  The relative with the largest house hosted a small party afterward, with lunch for the closest family members. Only the rich held a big banquet for friends and extended family.

  Everyone sat at one long table and ate a special, long wedding pasta called macaroni a fierr—which means macaroni by iron, since the pasta dough was wrapped around an iron poker or metal knitting needle. When it was pulled off, the pasta looked like a long curl of dough-colored hair. Long pasta for a long life together. Served over the fierr was a tomato ragout with meat in it, cooked for several hours ahead of time by the women in the family. Your daughter’s wedding day was one of the only other times you ate meat.

  Vita handed out more candied almonds for the children, an uneven number (since that was good luck). The band of local bagpipers and accordion players and cupa cupa players and a guy with a giant tambourine—so big it nearly blocked out the sun—played into the night. Vita danced, and danced and danced, spinning wildly and laughing. The guests then presented their gifts to the couple: simple offerings: liquor, sugar, a chicken, some eggs.

  At the end of the night, Vita’s f
ather placed a vase on the floor in front of the new, young couple, who had to stomp on it as hard as they could and break it to pieces. According to tradition, the shards would be counted and would stand for the number of years they would be happily married. But Francesco stomped so hard there were only crumbs and dust left. Everyone laughed at his passionate attack of the vase.

  But the fact that there were no actual shards worried Vita. It was a bad sign.

  Chapter 20

  WITH SNOW YOU GET BREAD, WITH RAIN YOU GET HUNGER

  And you, ugly, obscure cloud

  Why have you come? . . .

  No! Go away to your obscure places

  Where the cock doesn’t crow

  And there are no horse hoof prints

  I BROWSED THROUGH MY BOOK ON MAGIC IN THE SOUTH DURING Pisticci’s five-hour siesta and came across a whole chapter just about storms. Specific spells could undo an approaching storm that threatened the harvest. After the chant, a circle would be drawn on the ground with a sickle, which was then raised in the direction of the threatening clouds. It was the opposite of a rain dance.

  I thought about Giuseppe’s grain harvest and wondered if it would turn out all right. His wheat was standing tall somewhere out there in the distance. And I knew a hard rain could destroy it. “There is an Italian saying about the wheat my mother used to say,” Giuseppe had told me. “With snow you get bread, with rain you get hunger.”

  Just as I was thinking this, I heard thunder. I thought I was imagining it. It had been sunny and stiflingly hot just an hour ago. But the clouds had since gathered and the humidity was about to break. It hadn’t rained since I’d arrived.

  Thunder cracked again, this time louder, and closer. I realized I should go out and witness the real thing and maybe throw a chant or two Giuseppe’s way. So I put down the book, grabbed my small umbrella, the thunderclaps getting closer and closer, and headed to my favorite spot in Pisticci.

  It overlooked the Dirupo, the part of town on the edge of Pisticci that had fallen off many times in landslides. The most famous was the landslide of 1688 and the most recent, 1976. There was a scientific explanation for why this land kept sliding off the cliff—the erosion of the Pliocene clay that made up the calanchi. But some superstitious townspeople still blamed the devil.

  Grillaio falcons and rondini, small black swallows with white breasts, were here each and every afternoon flying in manic circles around and around as the sun set. Horses galloped on the farms below, proud roosters crowed, and sheep bleated like crying babies in the distance. I wondered if Vita had stood here as well, staring down with her two sons. I wondered if she felt more free here than she had in Bernalda. And more peaceful.

  It wasn’t raining yet. But the rain was on its way. In the distance was a huge black mass of clouds with a white shaft—the falling rain. It looked like a mushroom cloud and was heading straight toward Pisticci and eventually Marconia, toward Giuseppe’s farm. The lightning was maybe a mile away, and every thirty seconds or so I would see its jagged jolt rip through the sky, over the small farmhouses and olive trees in the distance. The falcons and rondini were flying in mad circles over the Dirupo, just like they did during sunset.

  I silently said an Our Father and asked that the storm bypass Giuseppe’s farm. Suddenly the wind seemed to change and the storm looked like it might veer out toward the sea and away from us. “Thank you, Jesus,” I said, laughing and looking up at the brightening sky. I decided to take a walk up to the Chiesa Madre, the sixteenth-century mother church where I was sure Vita had gone to Mass. I would say a longer and more formal prayer there, not just for Giuseppe and his family but for myself, that I would find Vita’s story.

  The Chiesa Madre, also called St. Peter and Paul, was at the very top of the town. With its tall beige bell tower in my sights, I climbed the steep hill. Up here the streets were bordered by red brick steps, but the center path was smooth and made up of a collection of actual stones of different shapes and colors. The street resembled a riverbed.

  I had been up to Chiesa Madre years ago and knew that its main building, tall bell tower, and rounded cupola had been built by brothers who had fled to Pisticci from their hometown of Mantua after being accused of murder. Just another Italian murder story for which I didn’t have the details.

  Halfway up the hill, with the cathedral in sight, the storm veered back toward Pisticci. I felt the first tentative raindrops. “Oh Jesus,” I said, opening my umbrella. It was so hot out that the drops were like flames falling from the sky. I sprinted on up the hill, but the storm was moving much faster than I was. The sky grew even darker, the rain grew thicker, and hail started to fall, ice balls the size of lemon drops. So much for my prayers.

  The umbrella couldn’t handle the onslaught, so I made a break for the church, which was locked tight. With the ice balls stinging my skin, I knocked on the giant arched door. No answer. Etched images of Sts. Peter and Paul stared back at me from the metal door panels. I pulled hard at the handles but they wouldn’t budge.

  I looked at the handle and thought of jimmying the lock with a credit card—something I’d learned years ago in Jersey City from some of my more notorious friends. But I had no credit cards. The replacements from the stolen wallet still hadn’t arrived. I considered picking the lock and wondered what I might have in my backpack that would do the trick. But Peter and Paul stared back at me and seemed to scold: “Don’t even think about it.” Besides, these locks were ancient and likely beyond picking.

  The rain fell even harder now, and faster. I scurried around to the back of the church and cowered under my now-battered umbrella and waited for it to slow down. But it just kept falling. As the cloud settled over Pisticci, I started to think more seriously about the lightning. Worried the metal umbrella frame would attract a bolt and that would be the end of me—fried to bits at the top of Pisticci—I closed it and tossed it on the smooth stones at my feet. I could just see the headline now: STUPID AMERICAN ELECTROCUTED BY LIGHTNING NEAR CHIESA MADRE. I imagined my family back home getting the bad news. I found an archway and settled under it. And waited. And waited. Aspet. Aspet.

  That cloud, like the church door, would not budge.

  I peeked my head around the corner and saw that the stone path I’d just climbed to the top of the hill was now a wide waterfall, the rain flowing in a steady pour down its indented center. The street was a true riverbed now. The torrent swirled around to the next level below and then shot out through ancient gutters that dropped the water down, down to the next level and the next, where it circled around and then deposited itself farther down into town and finally down the side of the clay mountain and into the valley below. The power of the storm, and of nature, was overwhelming and for a minute I pictured myself swept away by the water, hurled down the mountain in a giant landslide.

  But Pisticci was built to withstand the rain. The engineering was simple but effective. The church had a very deep foundation to stop it from slipping down the mountain.

  So I just relaxed and began to enjoy the downpour. It was exhilarating. All the Pisticcesi were locked safe inside their homes, away from the elements, napping or eating a big lunch. But I was out here, soaking wet, and a part of the storm.

  When the rain slowed down, I took out my phone and texted Giuseppe to see if the hail had hit his farm. “No,” he answered. “We are fine here. No hail. I finally have some luck.”

  I headed back down the hill, drenched to the skin, but feeling clean and wide awake, as if newly baptized.

  Chapter 21

  DON’T SPIT IN THE PLATE WHERE YOU EAT

  VITA FORGOT ALL ABOUT THE PULVERIZED VASE, ALONE WITH Francesco on their wedding night in their tiny house. Francesco’s naked back and shoulders were strong and tan, his muscles tight from his time in the army and all the work he did on the farm. She kissed Francesco again, this time longer and deeper, sinking further and further down as if happily drowning.

  Francesco placed his rough hands on her face and slowly
moved them down to start undressing his new bride. Vita felt an electric tingle move through her entire body.

  Then, a sharp knock at the door.

  It jarred Vita and brought her back to the surface, her eyes open, her heart quickening. The knock wasn’t unexpected, but was still a shock. Vita and Francesco had hoped they would be spared this one tradition on their wedding night, that they would be somehow passed over.

  It was the padrone, Grieco.

  He was well dressed and well groomed, in a suit, with a hat over his recently cut hair He took off the hat, stepped into the middle of the room, and said simply, “Buona notte.” The padrone didn’t need to say much more since there was no doubt why he was here. He wasn’t here to collect the rent or to see if Francesco was available for some last-minute farm work.

  He was here for Vita.

  Francesco obediently put his shirt back on, his shoes and his jacket, and without saying a word, without looking into the padrone’s face, made his way toward the door.

  Before he slipped out into the cool November night, leaving his young virgin wife to his boss, Francesco tipped his hat to him but looked into Vita’s teary eyes with his own sad eyes. In that fleeting moment, Francesco silently told her so many things: how he loved her, how he hated this man, and how he hated this life they had to live.

  Francesco wouldn’t fight. There was no point. Though he refused his consolation prize, his lamb dinner, in protest. Besides, he was sick to his stomach.

  Vita thought about fighting back, punching Grieco in his face and making a run for it, chasing Francesco into the dark night. But it would only end in disaster. She and her family and Francesco and his family would be punished and barred from working the farm. They would starve. In Italy, the saying was “Don’t spit in the plate where you eat.”